Goals: 2017

I saw this Buzzfeed article earlier in the week and was intrigued. I’d not heard of bullet journals before, but it seemed like something I would be into. Just go read that article and come back because I don’t feel like explaining what a bullet journal is.

I already have a passion planner, so the thought of keeping up with two things seemed like waay too much. Plus, I know I don’t currently use the passion planner to its fullest extent of usefulness anyway.

I figured there must be some way to hack my passion planner into a bullet journal, so today I sat down to figure it out.

In the back of the passion planner there are several blank pages and several blank grid pages. I often use the blank pages for things I need to reference later – addresses, names, websites, etc. I can easily turn the grid pages, which I never use, into a monthly view like the one in the Buzzfeed article. Check.

via Kat van LoonFlickr Creative Commons

The weekly view feels trickier since the passion planner breaks each day into half-hour segments. At the bottom, however, there is space for a personal to-do list and a work to-do list, which I also usually don’t use. So I can hack the personal to-do list into the weekly view to track the number of times I did things like exercise, hygiene, and social or self-care activity that week. The top of each day also has a “today’s focus” box which I never use, so I can track my daily mood with a 🙂 or :-/ or 🙁 easily there. Each week has a box for “Good Things That Happened” which already functions as a gratitude log. There is also blank space at the end of each week which I usually put notes in, but I can probably use the space more efficiently and snag a third of it for a “done” list.

So that’s a start, anyway.

I can try it for January and see whether it is useful or if it just feels like too much work. I am hoping maybe having a concrete way too look and say, see if I do XYZ I feel better will help me stay motivated, instead of it just being a logical thing that I know but that it’s hard to put in practice when I’m feeling bad. Accountability can be good, right? Even if it’s just to myself? Only time will tell if it activates my shame/anxiety or actually helps me feel like I’ve accomplished good things.

I also got a journal for Christmas, so if I take 30 minutes before bed each day to journal there and update the bullet journal, maybe that will help keep some stuff from just building up in my head. I’m going to try to make the last 45 minutes to an hour before bed a time to do things to help myself the next day, like cold brew coffee, lay out clothes, make sure I have portioned out breakfast/lunch/snack for the next day, etc.